A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Spoiler-Filled Discussion

[Anwar]

It's not that Martin can't figure out HOW to get Dany to Westeros, it's that (most likely) he realized that the dragons he gave her are too much of a game-breaker and would make it too easy to conquer Westeros with. He has to keep her away to keep the series from ending too fast.

 

[sidious618]

I don't mind AFFC but I do find large parts of it oddly forgettable, something I can't say about any of the other books. There are some fantastic parts of AFFC, the prologue, the Cersei chapters, and the Arya chapters immediately spring to mind. But the Dorne chapters and the Iron Isle chapters left me cold. I much more enjoyed the Victarion chapters in ADFD.

 

[Brendan Moody]

Double post. See below.

 

[Dream]

Quentyn isn't pointless. One can debate whether he's worth POV chapters, but his role in the narrative is vital in a couple different ways.

Aegon has been foreshadowed since A Clash of Kings; he's not a last-minute invention or a response to the Meereenese Knot or any of the other structural problems with the third, fourth, and fifth books. Daenerys is taking forever to get to Westeros for the same reason Sansa spends all of Clash and most of Storm getting abused and feeling awful about it: because the rest of the narrative bloated around characters who weren't supposed to do much until later in the story.

Another bloodbath that wipes out half the bloated cast would be very nice at this point.

 

[Brendan Moody]

Quentyn isn't pointless. We can debate whether he's worth four POV chapters, but his role in the narrative is vital in a couple different respects.

Aegon has been foreshadowed since A Clash of Kings; he's not a last-minute invention or a response to the structural issues in books three, four, and five. Daenerys is taking forever to get to Westeros for the same reason it took Sansa forever to do anything but get abused and cry about it, or Arya forever to do anything but get abused and seethe over it: because the narrative bloat around other characters turned one book's worth of near-stasis into two or three.

I know most people love A Storm of Swords, but I think structurally speaking it's as flawed as the two later books, and is easily the worst in the series for coincidence and contrivance in service to the plot. A fast-paced ending doesn't make up for Arya and early Jaime chapters that are much worse than the Brienne stuff from Feast for telling us things we already know about the horrors of war, or Davos chapters that amount to him sitting in a cell and being told the plot. It's usually suggested that the problem with the series was Martin abandoning the five-year gap, but the bigger mistake was inventing it in the first place when he restructured the series while writing A Clash of Kings. If book three had ended where the first book in the original plan for a trilogy did, with the Red Wedding, it would have been easier to move some of the setup elements from Feast and Dance alongside the eventful stuff from the last three hundred pages of Storm; it's all basically simultaneous anyway. Storm wouldn't be as much a fan favorite in that case, but the series as a whole would probably be a lot less messy.

 

[Venardhi]

Since when has he ever said the Red Wedding was originally meant to be the climax of the first book? I started reading these books 12 years ago and I've never heard that. As I recall, the original plan for a trilogy would have had the events of books 2 and 3 as one book, and everything that followed as the last. While writing, book 2 got too big so he split it into ACoK and ASoS, which necessitated splitting the final book into 2 also, then while writing book 4(of 5 at the time) he dropped the gap and it became 7.

 

[Shurik]

You didn't even like the Doran twist at the end of AFFC?

As I see it, the entire point of all the Dornish chapter was this twist. It wasn't really necessary to arrive at this point through 3 POV characters and 10 or so chapters of nothing of consequence happening to characters we never knew and don't care about.

Another bloodbath that wipes out half the bloated cast would be very nice at this point.

Indeed.

 

[DalekJim]

I know most people love A Storm of Swords, but I think structurally speaking it's as flawed as the two later books

I'd say it's the best paced of the series. Every POV character gets lots of interesting stuff.

 

[CaptainCanada]

A fast-paced ending doesn't make up for Arya and early Jaime chapters that are much worse than the Brienne stuff from Feast for telling us things we already know about the horrors of war

The point of the early Jaime chapters is not telling us about the horrors of war, it's the character development of Jaime. Brienne's AFFC stuff is a mix of that and Martin's view of war's aftermath.

I really liked ADWD chapters that were set in Westeros, except Dorne and Jon Conninghton. All the Essos chapters just kill whatever momentum the book develops. There's Quentyn, the single most pointless character in the books, even more than that idiot Kingsguard from AFFC. Aegon exists only because Martin has no idea how to bring Daenerys to Westeros, so Aegon does what Daenerys should've done a long time ago. I guess it's much easier to invent a new character (or "resurrect" in Aegon's and Connighton's case) than untie the Meereenese knot.

Aegon isn't a sudden invention. He's the "mummer's dragon" prophesied in A Clash of Kings when Dany visits the House of the Undying.

 

[Venardhi]

Indeed. I quite liked that addition. I just wish all the plots in ADWD were as interesting. Jon Connington and Aegon managed to sail across the narrow sea between a couple chapters. It took Victarion the whole book, and quite a few other characters seemed to spend most of their time on their way somewhere rather than actually doing much.

 

[CaptainCanada]

The Ironborn are the major addition to the franchise that I think Martin overindulges in, but he seems to really like them, moreso than I do.

Really, in terms of AFFC/ADWD, the POVs can be loosely divided into those characters whose stories really necessitated the scrapping of the five-year gap, and those characters whose stories would have accommodated it just fine.

In the latter category would go Jon and Dany, especially, as well as arguably Cersei, and characters like Stannis who are not POVs but depicted in other POVs. Those characters are dealing with very immediate threats and/or engaged in active rule. Cersei is going nuts (or more nuts than she already was) and destroying the Lannister regime; Jon and Dany are trying their hand at real sustained leadership, which is harder than it looks (particularly in Dany's case, where her story shows how she was good at inspiring people and conquering, but had no idea how to deal with the aftermath).

Then you have characters who could easily have skipped five years and updated us on what had happened to them in the intervening space. All of the Stark kids fall into this category, for instance, and so their chapter counts tend to be fairly low -- except Arya, and Martin has gone on record as saying he just really likes writing about Arya in Braavos. I'm not really sure that her greater chapter count tells us that much more than "Alayne" or Bran's 3/4, though. Tyrion also falls into that category -- his chapters are really the ones that could be most easily trimmed.

Then I guess you have a third category, groups of POVs that serve to introduce new settings and characters. And earlier poster is correct that, strictly from a plot perspective, you didn't really need that many Dornish chapters; but the goal there was to introduce the Dornish setting and characters are really get a feel for them. Same with the Ironborn.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

I'm about halfway through A Feast for Crows and I'm really enjoying it. What I really like about it is, it's basically about the women of the story. How each is fighting for their place in the world.

 

[DalekJim]

I'm about halfway through A Feast for Crows and I'm really enjoying it. What I really like about it is, it's basically about the women of the story. How each is fighting for their place in the world.

Loving the A Feast or Crows praise in this thread as it gets shit on by pretty much everybody on forums I visit elsewhere. My favourites in the book are the Arya and Sansa chapters, with both suffering severe emotional traumas and identity crises.

Better than reading Dany dick around in Meereen with a bunch of completely interchangeable characters that merge together in my mind.

I just finished Melisandre's POV in ADWD, it's my favourite chapter so far along with Asha's and Reek's chapters. These have all been brilliant, and I'm even starting to enjoy Tyrion's. Meereen is just too much though. I described it as "Dune Messiah written by an amateur" when explaining it to a friend. I stand by that.

Next chapter is a Reek, followed by a Bran. Fuck yeah!

 

[Dream]

I prefer to call The Ironborn... The Flop Vikings.

 

[DalekJim]

I like the Ironborn. Asha, Victarion, Euron and Theon are all great characters.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Theon and Asha are very strong characters (in Asha's case, her later chapters are more about POV into Stannis' camp). Victarion is amusingly meatheaded, but I think he was a bit overused.

But then, one of the issues with a lot of the POVs in AFFC and especially in ADWD is that Martin needs to make each POV substantive enough to feel like a little story in its own right, despite that there's not necessarily a huge amount actually going on (the exception being Jaime's one chapter in ADWD, but that's essentially just a postscript to his much lengthier participation in AFFC). A lot of the travelogue stuff in some POVs (Sam, Davos, Tyrion) probably comes partly from that. Like, in Sam's POV, all he really does is go from the Wall to Oldtown. Theoretically that could just be 2-3 chapters, rather than 5.

 

[DalekJim]

They're maybe a bit too long but I like Sam's A Feast For Crows chapters for Master Aemon's depressing as all hell (In a good way!) slow demise and the insight in to Oldtown we get. Very intrigued where that plotline is going.

Weakest POV in that book is probably Cersei as it's slightly too over the top. Still highly entertaining though.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

I like Cersei's simple but brilliant plot to get rid of both Margaery and Jon Snow. While it hinges on Margaery to fall for it, I doubt that she will. She seams a somewhat competent player of the game.

 

[DalekJim]

I'd say she's completely incompetent and deluded in all of her chapters .

 

[Captaindemotion]

^I think he meant Margaery, not Cersei.